The Music Thread

I have two pieces for you. One for the thoughtful: this needs to be played, and played, and played again and again ... in every school, every hospital, every place. EVER.



Science and reason are not the enemies of belief or fact. Science and reason ... complement our beliefs. The sooner we all realize that, the better off we'll all be. And -- and maybe I'm just yelling into the void, maybe I'm just trying to make myself feel better by repeating this, but hey. Whatever works in making sense of a nonsensical world. Enjoy!
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But hey, if you're just looking for a good excuse to combine Mongolian folk music with hard rock ... this is impressive. It's best to turn on the captions for this, but absolutely worth it.



A minute of listening to this, and I feel like getting on a horse, grabbing my composite bow, and invading the next town over. For the Khan!

(By the way, those extremely low notes you're hearing are produced by throat singing, a technique to manipulate your vocal cords to create sound. It is famous within the Asiatic and Inuit cultures. People in these cultures have practiced and performed the technique for thousands of years as part of a tradition. If you're curious, look it up).

 

This is a beautiful song about Christmas time in Australia and celebrating it with family ... except, as it happens, you're far from home. But you're looking forward to the next time you come home.

It's somber, and "hits you in the feels", but it's so beautiful, I can't help choking up. 'Scuse me while I reach for the tissues.



Since Australia is in the southern hemisphere, Christmas here is in the summer, 'cos we're upside-downy folks).

One of the lyrics mentions "socks, jocks and chocolates" as possible Christmas gifts. "Jocks" is a euphemism for underpants here and in the rest of the British Commonwealth, but I'm not sure if that's also the case in America.

Anyway, none of this changes the song, which is a beautiful song about ... family, and missing them when you're far away, and loving them so so much when you meet them again, and raising kids and loving them too and ...

Gosh, 'scuse me, I think there's some dirt in my eye;
but that's OK, in a nice way, 'cos I'm allowed to cry
or at least shed a tear,
'cos we're all grown-ups here
and if that didn't please you, then 'lend me your ear'
and perhaps I will write a Shakespearean sonnet
or maybe I'll eat a ham roll, with cheese on it.
So thank you for reading my spontaneous nonsense rhyme,
and I hope you didn't think 'twas a waste of time.

 

I've been having some deep issues with religion lately. Somehow the first part of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody (the video version) has awakened itself from the recesses of my mind in response. Before I know it I'm humming it, and it seems to be a backing track while doing my everyday things. Then I started to listen to the song on repeat, and I'm not too proud to admit that I cried quite a lot. And its not like i have never heard it before, which is strange.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see

I think with these religion issues, its the "look up to the skies and see" part that gets me.

I look up to the sky but can't see. Maybe somehow my eyes are just closed, and all this is my subconscious trying to tell me something.

Isn't art wonderful...

 

This band got an instant like from me. Why? Because they fuse powerful pop-rock with sexy sax to great effect. Check out RedHook from Australia..

RedHook - I Don't Keep Up (OFFICIAL EP STREAM)

 

This is genius

 

Not music, but a musing about it.

So, this morning I went grocery shopping as usual ... and the supermarket was playing "We Built This City" by Starship, one of the most criticized and hated songs from the 80s.

It started me thinking about the lyric of the chorus: "We built this city on rock 'n roll". Can anyone imagine a city literally built out of rock 'n roll? It'd never stand up. Bricks or wood are more usual, and I can see why.

As an aside, yesterday I watched a documentary about the achievements of the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations: the place where time-measurement, astrology, astronomy, writing (cuneiform), etc. - and the earliest surviving literary epic, i.e. The Epic of Gilgamesh - were created.

So, I had an idea to take the above song, write the story of Mesopotamia, and call it "We Built this City with Mud and Straw". (What?? At least it'd be accurate ... and hopefully entertaining). But maybe I shouldn't, 'cos everyone would compare it to the original, and hate it because of that.

What do you think, hmm?

 

No suprise here going by my handle, here is a song that really pulls on my heart strings.

Having raised two daughters, now 33 and 25, the song " I loved her first" by Heartland.

If you're a Dad you get it, something about a girl dad we are just made different, in a good way.

My .02

 

Hey @Homer Potvin , I found your next axe:

 

Dehors lonc pre

 

This was the number 1 song fifty years ago today:

 

Matty told Hatty...

 

I've heard this song ("Woolly Bully") before, but never understood the lyrics. Thank you, Louanne.

(Apparently, I wasn't the only one. When it was released, some radio stations banned this song for some reason? I've no idea why, but that's what wikipedia told me). *shrug* Any ideas?

 

I was surprised to hear this. (The cynic in me makes me think the lead singer was suspect because he looked foreign.)

According to Google:

"Wooly Bully," a 1965 novelty song by Sam the Sham, was banned by some radio stations due to the difficulty in understanding the lyrics, leading to speculation about hidden, suggestive meanings. People interpreted the lyrics to be suggestive, even finding a "f-word" in the song, despite the lyrics actually describing a conversation about a creature with horns and a woolly jaw (an American bison) and the desirability of learning to dance. The song's Tex-Mex influence and Sam's simple, almost nonsensical, lyrics further contributed to the confusion and the perception of the song being "dirty".